(The following is excerpted from the book Prophets
of PsychoHeresy II by Martin and Deidre
Bobgan. The book, which is now out-of-print, critiques
Dr. James Dobsons promotion of psychology and
self-esteem. This section of Prophets of
PsychoHeresy II is not included in the new
edition retitled James Dobsons Gospel of
Self-Esteem & Psychology. )

Dobson interviews Dr. Paul Meier, Dr. Frank Minirth,
and Don Hawkins on the topic of their book How to Beat
Burnout. Meier and Minirth are two psychiatrists who
head the Minirth/Meier Clinic in Dallas, Texas. There are
a number of additional Minirth/Meier clinics elsewhere as
well. At the time of the interview Hawkins was a cohost
of the Minirth/Meier radio broadcast. Together with Dr.
Richard Flournoy, they wrote the book How to Beat
Burnout.

At the beginning of the program Dobson mentions how
honored he is to have them and says:

The profession of psychiatry and psychology
has come in for criticism within the Christian
movement. In recent years theres been a
book that I wont even name because I
dont want to give publicity to it, which I
think has made some unfair statements. You really
do put the inerrancy of the Scripture in first
place. Above the psychiatric concepts it is
really the beginning point.1

Unfortunately Dobson doesnt even name the book
and only alludes to one of what he regards as
"unfair statements." It seems that if Dobson is
truly interested in protecting the church, he would not
only name the book, but deal specifically with what he
regards as unfair statements. How can anyone examine the
evidence under such conditions?

We understand how Dobson thinks that Meier and Minirth
are giving first place to the Scriptures. Dobson could
say the same thing about himself. But as we show earlier,
Dobson may intend to put the inerrancy of Scripture in
first place, but in practice he does not.

Meier and Minirths Faith in Psychological
Myths.

We shall not repeat here all that we have said in a
prior critique of Meier and Minirth.2
However, we do wish to note the following that was said
on the Dobson interview:

[Five stages of grief.] Whenever we get angry
we go through the five states of grief. . . .

[Cure rate.] We have patients by the hundreds
that we treat for agoraphobia, panic attacks,
anxiety disorders and theyre a hundred
percent curable. They all get over it.

[Birth order.] Most of the anxiety disorders
that we treat . . . are the oldest boy or the
oldest girl.

[Anger turned inward.] Burnout and depression
are usually caused by emotions turned inward.

In a separate interview with Dobson, Meier says,
"Ventilating it helps you get over that anger."
Meier also mentions the defense mechanisms of denial and
projection.3 In a later
interview between Meier and Dobson, discussing the topic
"Coping with Anxiety," Meier makes some of the
same comments as those above. Dobsons response to
Meier is, "Youre doing an awful lot of
good."4

We deal with the above topics in Prophets
of PsychoHeresy I, in which the above
comments are evaluated negatively. In the
conclusion to the section on Meier and Minirth we
say:We have shown throughout this section that
Meier and Minirth are heavily dependent upon
Freud, that at times they inaccurately use
Scripture to support their personal psychological
opinions, that they unjustifiably claim research
support for their conclusions, and that some of
their major therapeutic claims are in clear
contradiction to what the research reveals.

Unfortunately, in their attempts to biblicize
psychology, Meier and Minirth have ended up
psychologizing the Bible. And further, they have
demeaned the Word of God by sometimes twisting
the Bible to make it fit their preconceived,
unproven psychoanalytic opinions. They have
confused the issue even more by using the defunct
medical model of human behavior and justifying
their psychology with "all truth is
Gods truth." For those individuals who
want fellowship with Freud with a biblical
facade, Meier and Minirth would be a good choice.5

Psychological "Experts" Undermine
Parents.

Dobson also interviews Meier in a separate interview
titled "Christian Child Rearing." The theme
seems to be "parenting is difficult," which we
agree with. However, the underlying message is that
Dobson and his guests on the program will help you
parent. Meier and others give worldly advice, sometimes
with a biblical facade and sometimes without. Dobson
mentions a "Frustration of Parents" poll that
he did in which the number one frustration was: "I
dont feel I know enough. I dont feel
confident enough to do this job of parenting. Im
afraid, unsure of myself."

In response, Meier says:

You bet and its absolutely correct, too.
How would you like to have your gall bladder
removed by a surgeon that had never done surgery
before? How would you like to get a pair of
glasses from an ophthalmologist who had never
recommended a pair of glasses before? Of course
all of us would say I would never do that. Well,
how would you like to be raised by parents who
had never had children before. At least a third
of the children in the world are. Theyre
raised by parents who had never raised children
before and dont know what theyre
doing. And thats why Im so thankful
for the books you have put out and the radio
ministry that youre having. . . . People
are making a lot of mistakes in the name of love.

Theres a story about a little girl who
loved her cat and she was a very nice little girl
and she loved her cat a great deal. It was her
pet cat. And she lived up north in Michigan.
There was a snow storm and she looked out the
window and saw her cat shivering out there in the
snow. So she brought her cat in and put it in the
oven and accidentally killed it. A lot of times
we as parents love our children to death. We love
them and kill them by making mistakes. Im
not saying that to lay a guilt trip on anybody.
Im the last one to lay a guilt trip on
parents. And yet, at the same time, we need to
look at the truth. We all as parents make
mistakes.6

Meier says that he doesnt want to lay a guilt
trip on parents, but as a matter of fact he does. He
insists that parents dont know enough, dont
feel confident enough, are afraid and are unsure. Then he
gives examples that have nothing to do with the subject
when he compares child rearing with gall bladder removal
and a prescription for eye glasses. This is a gross error
continually made by Meier. He is confused about the
difference between the tangible and the intangible, the
physical and the behavioral. He passes his confusion on
to others and communicates that if we wouldnt have
a gall bladder removed without a trained physician, then
we wouldnt raise children without the psychological
professional. Building upon this erroneous reasoning, the
listener concludes that she needs Dobson, Meier and other
such professionals to help her.

As a rule we would say that establishing fear in
parents is not only counterproductive, but insupportable.
Children are extremely resilient. Using extreme cases and
intense emotional examples is harmful, not helpful.
Furthermore, Meier seems to forget that most parents have
had many years of training to become parents. Their
entire childhood taught them how and how not to be
parents. To preach that most parents are unequipped to
raise children is to put parents into a helpless position
and to rob them of any good sense they learned while
growing up. Furthermore, parents who are Christians have
biblical principles and standards to use in child
rearing. Listening to Dobson and Meier makes one wonder
how Christian parents managed throughout previous
centuries without the twentieth-century psychological
"experts."

Today, people trained in psychological counseling are
considered experts in all matters of living, including
child rearing. Thus Dobson and Meier should explain why,
with all their so-called expertise, psychotherapists as a
group are so (to use their term)
"dysfunctional."7
Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld says:

If counseling does indeed produce great
changes, the results should be easy to observe in
therapists, for they have received more therapy
than any other group of people and they have also
had extensive training in methods of personal
change, methods they could presumably use on
themselves if they wished to.8

Unfortunately these are the very same people who
propose to tell parents how to rear their children.

As we have shown elsewhere, many of Meier and
Minirths ideas on child rearing are Freudian. Dr.
Louise Bates Ames, co-director of the famed Gesell
Institute of Child Development, says:

I am afraid that the whole environmental
school which has dominated child care in America
in the last twenty-five years has made parents
too anxious, too insecure and too guilty. . . .
They created the attitude that the childs
psyche is fragile, which it is not. Most of the
damage we have seen in child rearing is the fault
of the Freudian and neo-Freudians who have
dominated the field. They have frightened parents
and kept the truth from them. In child care I
would say that Freudianism has been the
psychological crime of the century.9 (Emphasis added.)

Martin Gross says, "This environmental system is
based on the psychodynamic theory in which the unknowing
parent forces the child to repress its unconscious
drives."10 Gross
concludes, "Modern research indicates that the
skeptics have been right all along: that environmental or
Freudian theory is false."11
(Emphasis his.) Gross also says:

In the raising of children the parent is
generally the most knowledgeable guide. This
reassuring philosophy is repeated by no less an
expert than Dr. Spock himself. "The more
people have studied different methods of bringing
up children the more they have come to the
conclusion that what good mothers and fathers
instinctively feel like doing for their babies is
usually best after all."12

Gross further declares:

The modern sin of parenting has not been
one of psychological ignorance. It has been quite
the opposite. By absorbing the half-truths,
shibboleths and outright fallacies of the
Psychological Society, the parents of the last
thirty-five years have unfortunately put into
massive practice an idea whose time should not
have come.13
(Emphasis added.)

A writer to the editor in Science News says:

Our culture is obsessed with redefining all
natural developmental processes, making them look
like a laundry list of pathologies. Normal
childhood fears have become phobias, temper
outbursts are now oppositional disorders, worry
is overanxious disorder and wanting ones
mama around is separation anxiety.

Next come the statistical horror stories,
followed by political sanction of more
"health" care and treatment facilities.14

Misuse of Scripture.

In discussing an 8, 9 or 10-year-old pathological
liar, Meier says:

I would recommend you get him in for some
counseling. Proverbs says in a multitude of
counselors there is safety. A lot of people are
embarrassed to get counseling. You dont
need to be embarrassed to get counseling.15

Here is an instance of misuse of Scripture. Proverbs
is not referring to psychological counseling. In
fact, if psychological counseling were available at the
time, the Israelites would have surely been warned
against it as they were warned against other practices of
the nations around them.

Notice how Proverbs is sandwiched between the two
sentences recommending counseling (meaning psychological
counseling). And since Dobson does not protest, he must
agree with Meiers obvious interpretation and
application. Had we been interviewing Meier we would have
pointed out what he did and made it clear that we
disagree with what he recommends.

Psychological Faith Systems.

In another Focus on the Family interview, advertising Worry
Free Living by Meier, Minirth, and Hawkins, Meier
speaks of anxiety and defense mechanisms as follows:

That tension between the Holy Spirit pushing
the truth up and our depravity pushing the truth
back down is what I call anxiety. . . .

The function of a defense mechanism is to
deceive ourselves so that we wont ever grow
Christ-like, so well keep lying to
ourselves about our depraved thoughts, feelings
and motives. Its the cause of anxiety.16

Absolutely no psychological or psychiatric book would
contain such statements. Meier mixes the biblical and the
psychological to make the psychological seem acceptable.
However, instead of strengthening or illuminating
Scripture, he strengthens the grip of psychology and
distorts the meaning of Scripture.

To support his amalgamation, Meier says:

I was teaching a course at Dallas Seminary on
defense mechanisms and I taught them the forty
that we know of from psychiatry research and a
student for his thesis went through the
Scriptures and gave examples of all 40 of them in
the Scriptures.17

Thats easy to believe because its possible
to find examples from Scripture to support any
psychological system one is wed to----especially if you
are willing to bend Scripture to fit the system.

Just because psychological systems and personality
theories seem to explain the person and his
behavior, that does not mean that the explanations are
accurate. When we consider that there are numerous
competing systems, each of which pretends to explain
personhood, something must be amiss.

These theories appeared to be able to explain
practically everything that happened within the
fields to which they referred. The study of any
of them seemed to have the effect of an
intellectual conversion or revelation, opening
your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not
yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened
you saw confirming instances everywhere: the
world was full of verifications of the theory.
Whatever happened always confirmed it.18 (Emphasis his.)

At first glance this looks like promising evidence.
However, Popper insists that constant confirmations and
seeming ability to explain everything do not indicate
scientific validity. What looks like a strength is
actually a weakness. He says, "It is easy to obtain
confirmations or verifications, for nearly every
theoryif we look for confirmations. . . .
Confirming evidence should not count except when it is
the result of a genuine test of the theory."19 (Emphasis his.)

The theories of counseling psychology and their
underlying psychologies are not factual or scientific.
While they may include some factual observations they are
basically philosophical systems which require faith. Thus
when Dobson, Meier and others present their own personal
combinations of psychological opinions and gimmicks, they
are presenting a faith system. However, because their
readers and listeners think those people are presenting
scientific fact confirmed by the Bible, they are drawn
unwittingly into another faith system. But it is not the
"faith which was once delivered unto the
saints" (Jude 3).